


The Tigers Come At Night

by edwardcobblepot



Category: Gotham (TV)
Genre: Falling In Love, Implied/Referenced Rape/Non-con, Les Misérables References, M/M, Sad Ending, Suicide, Unrequited Love, i dreamed a dream, im sorry
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2017-06-04
Updated: 2017-06-04
Packaged: 2018-11-08 18:49:31
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: Graphic Depictions Of Violence, Major Character Death, Rape/Non-Con
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,714
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/11087757
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/edwardcobblepot/pseuds/edwardcobblepot
Summary: Oswald Cobblepot reflects on the events that lead to his descision to commit suicide during his last meal.AU where Oswald can't bring himself to ever face Edward again after the day at the dock, and finishes Edward's job for him.TW:(Semi-Explicit Rape)(Semi-Graphic Violence)(Suicide)





	The Tigers Come At Night

"Oswald?"

Ivy shook him awake with a gentle nudge. He gave a surprised grunt and stared wide eyed and frightened, before relaxing after realizing it was simply the teenager.

"What's the matter now?"

He asked, slightly annoyed and pulling his blanket up to his neck.

"Nothing. Just going grocery shopping. You need anything while I'm out? It is your wallet."

"No, I'm fine."

He grunted, and turned away from her.

"Okay... Are you going to be ready to go back out into the world soon? Gotham needs you. It's been a month."

Oswald shook his head yes, but his heart sunk at the thought.

 "Alright. Have a good nap." 

Ivy said, patting his leg before standing up from sitting on the couch leg and heading towards the door. He wasn't too worried about getting caught at Ivy's house by Edward. Edward wasn't searching for a dead man. Oswald got up when he heard the door shut, and limped over to the kitchen.

* * *

 

Oswald poured his herbal tea into a plain white mug, enjoying the hissing of the kettle that cut through the empty silence of the house. He turned the stove off and took a seat the kitchen table, staring blankly ahead of himself, as he drank what one might consider his last "meal". He never imagined it would end like this. He always thought it was his destiny to be killed by some big underground or political leader. He had come so close so many times between Maroni and Fish Mooney and Theo Galavan. He pulled his pistol out of his pajama pants and set it on the table.

Oswald recalls a time when men were kind to him. A long time ago, no doubt. A short term boyfriend, who was due to the marine corps 2 weeks after Oswald had met him. He remember gentle fingers brushing his hair out of his eyes. He remembered his first kiss on a small bridge over the river- he was so young and unafraid of being hurt. He had snot dripping down his face and his fingers were ice cold and he was only at the ripe age of 17.  The boy, Christopher, was a winter sort of love- there to keep Oswald from being cold. His voice has been soft, his words being warm and inviting between two plump, pink lips. Soon, he was sending Oswald letters from his base in Turkey. It was, for the first month, a letter a day. Then, it was a couple letters a week. Then, a few letters a month, only when significant things would happen at the base. Soon, he wasn't receiving any letters at all. 

When he stopped by Christopher's mother's apartment, scarf wrapped tightly around his neck as he introduced himself as a friend of her son's from her front door.

Mrs. Mauhl had known he was his boyfriend. She held Oswald tightly in a warm embrace and welcomed him inside the house for tea. Oswald remembers hanging up his scarf on a a coat hanger and slowly slipping off his snow shoes in the nice apartment (much nicer than his rodent infested one). 

It was the day Oswald realized silence has many emotions. Silence can be peaceful, or nerving, or  straight scary. He sat patiently at the dark brown table as Mrs. Mauhl poured him a mug of tea and then one for herself. She sat across the short table from Oswald, and took his gloved hand into her own. 

Oswald remembered seeing his tear drip into his cup of tea after bowing his head. Christopher's mother informed him that his base had been bombed and Christopher had been killed immediately.

Love, to Oswald, was once a song. And the song was sung beautifully and it was accepting and exciting and liberating. It had a joyful tune and wouldn't miss a beat or a pitch. It sounded like the jazz music his mother would play sometimes while she cleaned, and got ready for visitors, wheter it be a boyfriend or a school teacher. This was when hope was high and Oswald's life had been worth living. She would swing him on her hip and let him dance on her feet. But then Oswald realized love was a soft, almost saddening melody that was peaceful and easy on the ears.

Oswald had decided this when he met Edward Nygma, who had a soothing voice and charmed his was into Oswald's heart. Edward had won Oswald's heart twice. Both during his most fragile places, when Oswald has lost his mother, and then again when Oswald lost his father. Both those times Edward had eventually stripped Oswald of his clothes and gently rubbed his back with firm hands as Oswald silently wept. He would work his way down from Oswalds steong, upper arms, that were stretched above his head on the pillow, down to his shoulder blades, then melted his hands down the curve of his back, all the way to where his comforter met his naked hips. After a while, he would put everything away, and throw Oswald's clothes in the wash. He would put a warm rag where his spine curved, and would crawl into bed beside him. He would slowly pull him closer to him, until they were spooning, Oswald only in his underwear by this point, and Edward in his boxers and a t-shirt. 

The third time Edward did this was while Oswald was stressed about running for mayor. Oswald had asked him to do it for him, and it helped him relax. When Edward had reached down to the lower part of his back, he had whispered,

"Oswald?"

To which Oswald replied,

"Yeah, Ed?"

"Could I go further?"

It was the faintest, and softest whisper. It was innocent and pure and Oswald hadn't had any idea that Edward had wanted to see him in that way. That love had made Oswlad nod eagerly. That night had been the first and only night Oswald made love to someone. In that moment, Oswald believed that love couldn't die, that he had met the one with whom had owned his heart. God had forgiven him of his sins and given him a beautiful man to fall in love with, who sang him wonderful songs with a deep and steady voice when Oswald couldn't sleep.

Oswald had made and used and wasted his dreams so easily. He rushed into things so quickly, eager to impress the memory of his beloved parents. He wanted and wanted and wanted, and felt untouchable. With Ed by his side, no one could stop him. They were always, consecutively, five steps beyond people who tested him. He was free, ans there was no more Theo Galavan who held his mother for randsom. There was only glorious wine fied nights and laughter and singing with his lover, although he doesn't known if he'd call him that, considering they only had sex once. But romantically, they were lovers, and Edward respected Oswald's asexuality, and that typically Oswald did not desire sex. This didn't make Oswald any less loveable.

 Their fling was all good and dandy, that was atleast until Isabella came along and showed Oswald who Edward really was and how Edward really felt about their "relationship", if you would call it that. Oswald had thought they were in a relationship of some kind, that they were supposed to only be loyal to one another, even though it was never set in stone. It was definitely not, it was a grey space where they weren't just a bunch of onenightstands crushed together to form a sort of bond between the two, but they weren't boyfriends. And then again, they weren't the middle ground (lovers) either, because their emotions ran deeper than that of the flesh. 

This middle ground couldn't have been friends? Could it? That's what he introduced Oswald as to his new girlfriend. His friend and his boss. Oswald wondered if the words "andthemanthatitold'iloveyou'towhilewefornicatedandslepttogetherallsummer' slept soundly under Edward's tongue the same way it slept under his own when he nodded and smiled along to what Edward was saying.

Edward later admitted he had a hard time accepting Isabella's uncanny likeness to an ex-girlfriend of his. He had looked up at Oswald, while Oswald stood beside the couch Edward was laying down on, with big, brown puppy-dog eyes, and he asked for Oswald's help breaking the news to her. Oswald had automatically assumed, for a reason he can't recall other than his own ignorance to thinking they still had a relationship, that this meant Edward wanted Oswald to tell her something along the lines of "Edward never loved you" and "fuck off, and give it up". These were the things, that Oswald now knows, he should've been convincing himself.

And when Isabella didn't take the hint, and Edward spoke of how in love with her he was after they had had sex, the only option, in Oswald's mind, to let Edward know he belonged with him, was to murder Isabella. And when he did that, only sadness and rage and anger and heart brokeness followed.

Though Oswald knows he would do it all again if he had to, hell, if he had the oppurtunity to. And he wouldn't change a thing, except for one. He would tell edward how he felt and how confused he was about the situation before he murdered Isabella. And then, depending on response (only Oswald knows which one) he would murder her again. Perhaps he would crush a burning bar through her heart this time and tie each end to a rope he would dangle off the East side of his home, where Edward slept. This way, he could really get his feelings across to Edward. It'd be payback to what real Edward did with his father's remains. Atleast real Oswald had half the decency not to mess with people's corpses. 

Upon Isabella's death, Oswald discovered the cold truth. That Tigers come at night and they will devour you, but only if you let them. Somewhere, in the darkness of Oswald's mind, he knew what Edward did to him was his truest form of the terrifying Tiger that was Edward Nygma, and that he had let Edward have his way so easily with him, because at one time, Edward had slept a summer by his side. At one time, Edward had filled Oswald's days with endless wonder and fullfilment. He had taken Oswald's childlike sexual innocence in his stride, and toyed with Oswald's feelings, and then he way gone when autumn came. 

When Edward came into Oswald's room that night, half drunk and depressed about the loss of his dear Isabella, Oswald assumed that Edward had come back to him. 

 _Finally._ Oswald thought and he smiled into his pillow as Edward walked towards his side of the bed. 

Edward strangely tore the bedsheets off from the bed. And his voice was soft as thunder as he told Oswald to wake up. Oswald rubbed his eyes and sat up, feet dangling over the side of the bed that Ed had approached. Edward was naked except for his boxers.

"Edward? What are you doing? It's late. Let's go to bed and talk in the mor-"

Oswald was cut off by a hand around his throat, firmly controlling the smaller man. Edward pushed him back and got on top of him, fighting Oswalds arms down and tying him with the expensive tie that Oswald had bought him as a gift when Oswald won the Mayor election. Oswald was sobbing and screaming "nononononostopedwardno" as Edward sat on top of him, ripping open his buttoned up pajama shirt, then sliding off to pull down his bottoms and underwear. His hope for a relationship with this man had been torn open as Edward, still with those dark eyes and thunder voice grunted,

"Open your mouth." 

He put emphasis on this statement by gently wrapping a throat around Oswald's neck and giving him a small squeeze. Oswald opened his mouth when Edward pulled down his own underwear, and Oswald felt like he couldn't breathe and he was trying so hard to spit the saliva out of his mouth around Edward's member so he wouldn't choke but Edward took this as an invitation and only fucked his mouth harder and harder, and pushed it to the back of his throat until Oswald was spurting and crying and clawing the bed sheets above his tied hands did Edward pull out and let Oswald breathe. He slapped him hard in the face and put a forceful hand on the back of his throat and flipped him over to where he was on his knees and his face pushed into the mattress. 

"Beg me to fuck you, Oswald. Tell me how much you need it in you. Tell me how much you want my cock."

Oswald was still crying and was trying hard to look back at him when he said,

"Edward you don't have to do this please I'll forget this ever happened let's just go to sle-"

Edward slapped him on the ass hard and returned the same hand to the back of his neck, squeezing harder.

"Do what I say, Oswald."

"Please... Edward."

And in the unfortunate event that followed, Oswald first wished he was dead and truly meant it. Edward kept hurting him, and hurting him, and hurting him until Oswald felt something wet underneath him and then again, the same wetness between his thighs and Edward pulled his own underwear back up and left to go his own bedroom. Oswald laid down and cried and took a shower and cried and contemplated murdering Edward, although he knew he couldnt bring himself to do it and it would only lead back to him in a murder case. In that moment, Oswald decided that Ed could turn his dreams to shame and he wouldn't do anything about it. The next morning, he forgave him easily when Edward brought up how drunk and sorry he was. 

A few weeks after that, Oswald finally admitted how much he loved Edward, with his hands tied and tears running down his face.

"I loved her... and you killed her."

Oswald's jaw dropped as he realized he had been shot in the stomach by the man he loved. 

Edward pushed him into the ocean, and yet as he sank, he still reached and yearned for Edward's touch.

* * *

"And yet I still dream he'll come back to me, and we will spend the years together but there are dreams that cannot be and there are storms that we cannot weather."

Oswald scribbled this off-quote onto a small piece of paper from a notepad and signed his signature under it.He grasped this piece of paper in his left hand and put the pistol where his stitched up bullet hole was in his stomach. 

The piercing sound of the gun breaking through the silent room satisfied Oswald, as he gasped for breath and dropped the gun to the floor.

* * *

 

_There was a time when men were kind._

_When their voices were soft_  
_And their words inviting_  
_There was a time when love was blind_  
_And the world was a song_  
_And the song was exciting_  
_There was a time_

_Then it all went wrong_

_I dreamed a dream in times gone by_  
_When hope was high and life worth living_  
_I dreamed, that love would never die_  
_I dreamed that God would be forgiving_  
_Then I was young and unafraid_  
_And dreams were made and used and wasted_  
_There was no ransom to be paid_  
_No song unsung, no wine untasted_

_But the tigers come at night_  
_With their voices soft as thunder_  
_As they tear your hope apart_  
_As they turn your dream to shame_  
_He slept a summer by my side_  
_He filled my days with endless wonder_  
_He took my childhood in his stride_  
_But he was gone when autumn came_  
_And still I dream he'll come to me_  
_That we will live the years together_  
_But there are dreams that cannot be_  
_And there are storms we cannot weather_  
_I had a dream my life would be_  
_So different from this hell I'm living_  
_So different now from what it seemed_  
_Now life has killed the dream_  
_I dreamed_

* * *

 

**Author's Note:**

> Its okay if you dont like it i dont even know if i like it lol  
> Sorry for typos and sadness


End file.
